Complimentary Car Hire provided without thrid party insurance - now I am being sued!!

seanmac30

Hi,

Really need some advice here..I'll try to be short..
A driver reversed in to our car last April and his insurance company accepted full liability for the accident. They offered us full repair of the damage to our car and a hire car while we were waiting for it to be fixed. We accepted the offer and collected the car from Enterprise Car Hire. Unfortunately, my wife was involved in a car accident a few days later and we reported this to the Enterprise straight away. It was only at that stage that Enterprise stated that we were responsible for providing third party liability cover through our own insurance policy and said that we should contact our own insurance company. On doing this my insurers pointed out that only I, as policy holder, have third party cover to driver other cars and this does not extend to my wife as named driver. Enterprise's insurers are trying desperately to avoid accepting liability even going as far as accusing me of allowing my wife to drive the car hire without their permission. When I produced a receipt that stated that my wife was indeed a named driver on the car hire agreement they quickly dropped this accusation but it didn't stop there. They then contacted us last week to state that we should have purchased extra insurance on taking the hire car and that responsibility for the claim rested with my wife. I have replied to then stating that we have a letter from the insurance company providing the hire car which stated the hire car would be issued for my wife and I completely free of charge so how could they claim that I was responsible for buying extra insurance for my wife. We were never offered this at the time of picking up the car hire or never told of this responsibility. I also accused Enterprise of being negligent for the not providing the extra cover despite me providing my insurance cover note prior to taking hire which explicitly states that I am only covered for driving a hire car and not my wife. I should have asked at he time of picking up the hire car why they wanted my insurance details but I was naive and it never occurred to me. I have not heard from Enterprise since. Last week I wrote to insurance company that provided the hire car offer asking them to sort this issue out with Enterprise citing their original assurances of providing a hire care 'at absolutely no cost to you'. Again, I have not had a reply so far.

Today my wife was served with a County Court claim for damages (£5-15k) relating to the accident by one of the other parties involved in the accident and we have no idea what to do. We are trying to contact the claimant to explain the situation but we don't expect much joy as the claimant is using a no-win no-fee firm of solicitors to sue for damages. We are also trying to get legal advice ASAP relating to the claim. We feel we are being made as a scapegoat by the car hire company and the insurers involved and are frightened to death as we can't afford to pay out damages for this accident. My wife is 8 months pregnant and I am really worried about her stress levels at this stage. Can anyone give us some advice on how we challenge the damages claim and make the original insurers/Enterprise to take responsibility.

Thanks in advance,

Johnny

Quentin

You need to take this to a solicitor for advice.

InsideInsurance

Also, rather than writing a letter to the Third Part Insurer, which could take weeks to even be looked at, why not phone them?

To be honest, have known Enterprise to have all sorts of issues in the past and fairly often with confusion when an insurance company operate different T&Cs depending on if it is a standard or "gold" customer or TP etc. What does your paperwork from Enterprise state about insurance cover?

seanmac30

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Also, rather than writing a letter to the Third Part Insurer, which could take weeks to even be looked at, why not phone them?

To be honest, have known Enterprise to have all sorts of issues in the past and fairly often with confusion when an insurance company operate different T&Cs depending on if it is a standard or "gold" customer or TP etc. What does your paperwork from Enterprise state about insurance cover?

Yea, reading the small print it seems that I signed to say that I would use third-party liability cover available to me to cover while I was driving the hire car. My, wife, as named driver on my insurance policy was not covered and so this policy was not available to cover her so in that instance Enterprise should have provided the basic third party cover for her at no cost to us. Enterprise failed to recognise this when issuing the agreement in spite of me providing insurance which states the limitation of my policy. This is at the centre of our argument with Enterprise as the rental agreement only refers to third-party liability AVAILABLE to me. We have been making contact with most parties today and seeing a solicitor on Friday.

sunflower_2

you would not have been in this position had a third party not driven into your own car??

therefore i would say your claim is with them??

how many cars are in the family?? is the car in question yours or your wife's car?

seanmac30

sunflower wrote: »

you would not have been in this position had a third party not driven into your own car??

therefore i would say your claim is with them??

how many cars are in the family?? is the car in question yours or your wife's car?

We have just one car and myself and my wife share it. We were both inconvenienced by the original accident and therefore both of us were entitled to access to a hire car and not to be disadvantaged in any way in comparison to if we were driving our own car. In that case, the third party insurer were responsible for provision of any shortfall in insurance liability that might have occurred due to us using a hire car. This, to me is completely reasonable in hind-sight and I wish I knew then what I know now! If we had to pay for extra car insurance just to drive the hire car we would have been unfairly disadvantaged through no fault of our own and that is unfair. Unfortunately, it might require a judge to make that decision

Crazy_Jamie

sunflower wrote: »

you would not have been in this position had a third party not driven into your own car??

therefore i would say your claim is with them??

Unfortunately not. The negligence that caused this particular accident, be it with the OP's wife or with the third party in the second incident, would break the chain of causation arising out of the original accident. Causation is not an endlessly running cycle, and it certainly it wouldn't run as far as this second accident.

Crazy_Jamie

seanmac30 wrote:

In that case, the third party insurer were responsible for provision of any shortfall in insurance liability that might have occurred due to us using a hire car. This, to me is completely reasonable in hind-sight and I wish I knew then what I know now! If we had to pay for extra car insurance just to drive the hire car we would have been unfairly disadvantaged through no fault of our own and that is unfair.

Whilst it is certainly true that the third party insurer from the original accident would be liable to pay any reasonably incurred costs relating to hiring a replacement vehicle, the key is whether the blame for the current shortfall in insurance cover (if indeed one exists) lies with yourself, Enterprise, or the third party insurer. This is very much fact sensitive, depending on the terms of the agreement as well as potentially other correspondence and discussion between the parties. Though on balance it is perhaps unlikely relatively speaking that the third party insurer would be in the wrong here. It's not out of the question, but out of the two it's probably more likely that the blame lies with Enterprise.

Just to clarify your previous post, but are you now saying that the small print within the agreement from Enterprise confirms that you would be covered to drive the hire vehicle due to being the main driver on your original insurance policy, but that your wife would not be covered due to her being a named driver?

PDAH

Hi Seanmac, the rental agreement is the key document, its whats going to save you or not as the case maybe. After all the sales talk and representations its the written agreement that counts. So what does it say? Was the hire car on your insurance or Enterprise's? Enterprise will have some contingent liability cover anyway and as vehicle owner I would be keen to involve them in this matter if I was acting for the claimant.

chanz4

Normaly when you get a hire car from the insurance, you drive under your own insurance policy on the hire car like for like.

sarahg1969

Enterprise self-insure up to a certain level. OP, I'd speak to a solicitor if I were you.